Fisheries Committee on May 25th, 2010

[Gérard-Raymond Blais]

Actually, I would say that the effect is very visible. If you had occasion to talk to the people who work at the CLSCs, the hospitals or other institutions that provide health care in the region, you would readily see for yourselves that there has been more illness in recent years, since the crisis in the forest industry, the fisheries and agriculture—which is perfectly normal.

Clearly, when people never have enough money to get them to the end of the month, that results in physical and psychological problems. I still do volunteer work at the Pabok CLSC where we deal mainly with drug addicts. It is not hard to see that the drug addiction rate rises every time jobs are lost in one industry or another. I believe you and I had the same experience, when we were without work for a certain amount of time. That causes anxiety, insecurity and uncertainty, and people find themselves asking a lot of questions, but without getting the answers they are so anxious to receive.

[Raynald Blais, Bloc, Gaspésie—Îles-de-la-Madeleine, QC]

What do you think, Mr. Cousineau?

[Gaétan Cousineau]

Recently, we had the example of a lady who was fighting a battle over sickness benefits. Mr. Gérard-Raymond Blais talks about stress. Obviously, it can cause illnesses that, in the absence of that stress, were not as prevalent in society, such as cancer, heart attacks, embolisms, etc.

Employment insurance provides 15 weeks of sickness benefits. For about a year now, groups that defend the unemployed have been fighting to secure an increase in the number of weeks of sickness benefits from the federal government, but this demand does not seem to have been very well received, since nothing is being done right now to try and respond to that new reality. There are more and more people being diagnosed with cancer.

As the gentleman was saying, it costs a lot of money to receive care in the region, because you have to go to Rimouski or Quebec City. There is no isolation allowance to compensate for those expenses. All of that just adds to the gloomy atmosphere and insecurity that everyone has been talking about this morning.

I really do not know how we will be able to support these people, who represent a considerable proportion of the population in our region. I am receiving more and more calls from people who say they are entitled to 10 or 12 weeks, that they only have 3 weeks of sickness benefits left, and that their treatment will take 3, 4 or 5 months. They are wondering what is going to happen to them. Employment insurance certainly cannot continue to provide income replacement, since they are neither available or able to work. So, these people find themselves in what is an impossible situation.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rodney Weston]

Merci.

Mr. Donnelly.

[Fin Donnelly, NDP, New Westminster—Coquitlam, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I have three minutes. I would like to direct my question to Monsieur Desbois, but if I may, I'll really quickly reiterate what I think I'm hearing overall in terms of some recommendations. One is that DFO needs to reduce uncertainty by changing the governance and management model or structure and shifting to a community-based one, and also that they need to increase job and worker security by protecting fishers and plant workers.

But the third thing I heard was that we need an investigation into the current snow crab situation. There was a reference made that the last time the allocations of the catch levels were this low was 20 years ago. So I'm wondering, Monsieur Desbois, if you could comment further about what this investigation would look like and who would be involved. Could you elaborate a little in the remaining time?

[Daniel Desbois]

As I said, we experienced this kind of drop in 1989-1990. At the time, there were 130 of us in the industry. When that happened, we sat down, acted responsibly and invested a lot of money in research. We gave a lot of money to biologists at Fisheries and Oceans Canada, and that resulted in significant advancements. Until 1994-1995, we were seeing record catches, or pretty well. But from then on, the Department did not let us reap the benefits of the effort we had made and the responsible actions we had taken. The resource allowed the Department to shirk its responsibilities. You may be thinking that I am constantly repeating myself, but it is a little difficult to ask fishers to behave responsibly if they are not going to be allowed to reap the benefits subsequently.

In terms of regulations and what could be changed, first and foremost, the resource has to be protected. That is the first thing, because without the resource, no one can make a living. For three years now in Quebec, the guys have not been covering their expenses. I do not know how it was managed. They based themselves on past years, when crabbers had a few good years, but that has not been the case for a long time now. It looks as though the resource is being managed based on things that happened in the past, on parochial squabbles. It seems that someone who is making money in the region does not have the right to do that. But all of that is over now, because no one here is making any money and no one has for at least three years.

That is more the case in Quebec than in New Brunswick because, since the Marshall ruling, the Quebec region has paid 17%, compared to 11% in New Brunswick, because the quotas were already higher. Starting in 1990, they were individual quotas. Quebec fishers paid 6% more for the Aboriginal communities. As a result, for three years now, these quotas have been incredible. The media are talking about it this year, but for three years now, the guys have not been meeting their expenses.

So, the resource is important, but so is the way it is allocated. So far, it seems the Department is trying to get rid of one enterprise to the benefit of another. We really do not know. It is difficult to understand precisely what the Department is aiming to do. We are sort of swimming against the current, without knowing what is going on, and we really do not know what to do about it. What regulations should be put in place? What exactly is happening with us? What is happening in terms of management? That is the source of the uncertainty. We do not know where we are going, and as a result, we are unable to plan.

The guys have made a lot of investments, but now we are wondering what we should do. We really do not know. I cannot really answer you as long as there is not more stability in certain areas. We will not be able to continue much longer; pretty soon, we will be facing a crisis like the one that hit the groundfish industry. The boats will be tied up at the dock and there will be no fish or shellfish left. That is the direction we are moving in.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rodney Weston]

Thank you.

Mr. Kamp.

[Randy Kamp, Conservative, Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge—Mission, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thanks to all of you for coming here to help us understand this issue a little better.

Let me begin by saying that the Quebec region has often been an example for others in the Maritimes and Newfoundland and Labrador to follow in terms of conservation measures. We thank you for the good work you've done in the past on that.

I only have a few minutes, so let me begin with Mr. Desbois.

I understood that you represent traditional crabbers; I think I'm right there. Are there any temporary.... Those who held temporary licences, or quota holders, as they're sometimes called, or core fishermen, as they're sometimes called as well...were there any in this region who got temporary licences in addition to the traditional licences for crab?

[Daniel Desbois]

Yes, in this area we have been sharing since 1995. However, since 2003, the allocations are made to associations of fishers who give them to other fishers, who fish their quota for them. That money is used to rationalize the fisheries. That is why we are saying the Department is using crab to shirk its own responsibilities. Rather than buying back the licences it sells, it rents out this crab stock to a fishers association, which then has to develop a rationalization plan. That money is being used to buy back lobster and fish traps in order to get these people out of the fishery.

[Randy Kamp, Conservative, Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge—Mission, BC]

But there are some in this region who have benefited from that arrangement, yes...?

[Daniel Desbois]

Yes, but let me give you an example. For instance, if the price of crab were $2 this year, the association would send a fisher out to harvest it for $1. It would use the other dollar for its rationalization program, because the association is not allowed to fish; it does not have boats or licences. Under normal circumstances, only a fisher can get a licence or certain exemptions. Some fishers have corporate licences. Most of the time, an association or a company is not allowed to hold a licence. Fishers take the allocations from the associations, and a certain number of inshore, lobster and groundfish fishers fish these allocations, but for very little money.

[Randy Kamp, Conservative, Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge—Mission, BC]

Yes, and I understand that conclusion you're reaching there. But the conclusion that I'm having a more difficult time understanding is the notion that if you add these new entrants--these 15%--and you stabilize them, you give them a quota, that somehow that is affecting the stock.

I mean, we assess the biomass and we conclude what the commercial biomass is, and then we divide it up. I understand how that affects the individual fisherman, but I don't see how the new entrants are somehow responsible for the collapse of the stock. It's a cyclical stock. I know how it affects the individual quota, but I don't see how it's responsible for the collapse of or the reduction in the total biomass of snow crab.

[Daniel Desbois]

Nor did we ever say they were responsible for the collapse of the stocks. On the other hand, if you ask 40 people to pick strawberries in a field, it is likely that more of them will end up being crushed. That is what I am saying. We went from 150 to 400 fishers, and then to almost 700. Even last year, the number was 400. We went from 18,000 to 38,000 traps. It is impossible for that not to have an impact. We are not saying they are responsible for everything that has happened; that is not the case. However, we should not be forcing everyone to consider economics ahead of biology and the environment. If economics are what dictate your course of action, you do not think the same way and you will always be pushing a little harder. Everyone is pushing a little harder.

Last year, we asked for 19,900 tons; the Department said it would have to be 19,200 tons. We are talking about a difference of 700 tons. Departmental officials made a big deal of it, saying that fishers were always asking for larger quotas. Today, even with an additional 700 tons, I think we would still be facing the same problem. The Department, even its own biologists, did not see this coming. Economically speaking, though, we need certain quotas in order to live. For three years now, we have not been living. We all know about the cyclical collapse of the stocks; it will happen again 10 to 12 years from now.

[Randy Kamp, Conservative, Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge—Mission, BC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rodney Weston]

Thank you.

Ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of the committee, I'd like to say thank you very much for taking the time out of your busy schedules to come and meet with us here today to offer your points of view and share your answers to the many questions our members have had.

We certainly do appreciate your hospitality. Thank you once again, on behalf of the committee, for taking the time.

We will take a short break while we set up for our next witnesses.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rodney Weston]

Welcome to all our witnesses.

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for taking the time today to come to meet with our committee. We really appreciate you taking time out of your busy schedules.

We'll allot four minutes for opening statements and then we'll move right into the questioning time for our members to ask some questions of you, based on your statements and whatever other interests the members may have. You will hear a beeping noise up here; the timer will go off when the four-minute timeframe has expired. I would ask that at that point in time you try to bring your comments to a conclusion shortly afterward. I'd appreciate that. Thank you very much. Members have times they are confined to as well. They are fully aware of the time constraints they have to work within.

Mr. Hunt, I'll let you proceed, if you'd like to make your opening comments at this point.

[Ronald Hunt, Dockhand, As an Individual]

To start, I'd like to comment that I'm a fisherman, and what happens to us is that when the fishing quota comes out every year, it's 72 hours before we go out on the sea. If something bad happens in that period of time, I don't have time to turn around and find myself another job, because I'm a seasonal worker. On the Gaspé coast we are nearly all seasonal workers.

I can always work somewhere else, but if I find out two weeks before the fishing opens that I'm going to have about four weeks' work, and my chômage, my UI, is going to finish in about four or five weeks, I don't have time to turn around and find myself another job. All the other jobs are probably taken. Everything else has already started.

The other problem we had when we had the announcement is that a crab fisherman is a company, so when we put down the quota, the first line of action the captain had was to lay off people. The second action, for the ones that he kept, was to reduce the workload, so he gave us maybe four or five weeks of salary.

That's what I have to tell you today.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rodney Weston]

Thank you very much, Mr. Hunt.

Monsieur Méthot.

[Lorenzo Méthot, Secretary, Association des membres d'équipages des crabiers de la Gaspésie]

Good morning everyone.

My name is Lorenzo Méthot. I am secretary of the Association des membres d'équipages des crabiers de la Gaspésie.

I would like to begin by giving you some brief background information about the crab fishery from 1980 to 1989. At the time, there was a great deal of competition. Many crabbers had more traps in the water than what was authorized by the legislation. Some traps stayed in the water over the winter and the fishers would recover them in the spring, in order to have more traps to fish. That was the case until 1989, when the crab catch fell, because the fishing harbour was too big. I am not telling you anything you do not already know. This is just some background information.

In 1990, in order to open up the fishery, DFO decided there would be individual quotas for each boat, so that the crab stock could be rebuilt; this was the case until about 1996. After that, the Asian markets started demanding a better quality of crab. As a result, companies wanted better quality crab. For most of the fleet, this was the beginning of the practice of grading and dumping different categories of commercial crab.

A little later, the First Nations entered zone 12 with additional cash that allowed them to purchase boat licences. In order to integrate aboriginal fishers into the fishing system, several traditional fisher helpers were laid off and received no assistance from the federal government. After that, the fact that non-traditional fishers were able to secure crab allocations in zone 12 resulted in a surplus number of traps, which is why we are at the same point now that we were in 1989.

There is also the white crab fishery until July. At every meeting we have held, we have always said we want that fishery to be closed at the end of June, but they have never wanted to do that. Throughout the last decade, DFO has allowed Aboriginal fishers to continue to harvest fish until the end of July. In 2010, coming at the same time as reduced quotas, that was the last straw. With the blessing of the same troublesome party, the transfer of quotas to other boats once again led to many crew members being laid off and several boats remaining in drydock, where they are likely to stay.

After the fishery opened in 2010—there is white crab this year—four weeks passed before the fishing areas were closed. According to crew members, the significant decline in the resource is due to excessive fishing effort, too many people, too many traps and too much white crab fishing.

Nowadays, with the new boats and the new so-called Japanese cages, fishers harvest three to four times more than was the case before, in the traditional fishery. In my view that has not been considered.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rodney Weston]

Thank you, Mr. Méthot.

Mr. Diotte, please.

[Marc Diotte, Representative, Association des morutiers traditionnels de la Gaspésie]

Mr. Chairman, Mr. Blais, good morning.

My name is Marc Diotte and I am here representing the Association des morutiers traditionnels de la Gaspésie. I would like to begin by thanking the members of the Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans of the House of Commons for coming to the region to give us an opportunity to voice our opinion on the snow crab fishery in zone 12—that is, in the southern Gulf of St. Lawrence.

To begin with, I would like to point out that the members of our association are all single-licence groundfish fishers who have been fishing snow crab for many years now, as a result of the Department of Fisheries and Oceans deciding, several years ago, to provide greater access to this fishery. Therefore, each of our members has a temporary snow crab allocation which varies from year to year, depending on the total allowable catch set by the Department of Fisheries and Oceans.

In recent years, with the exception of 2010, our members had averaged temporary snow crab allocations of about 20,000 pounds a year. In 2010, a 63% cut in the total allowable catch for zone 12 meant that our temporary allocations averaged 8,000 pounds for each of our fishing enterprises, which you will certainly agree is very little.

For all our members, the snow crab fishery is one of the only fishing activities we are able to practice nowadays because, as you probably know, we no longer have access to the cod fishery in the southern Gulf as a result of considerable restrictions being introduced when a third moratorium on that fishery was declared last year.

Except for very limited access to the Atlantic halibut fishery, most of our income is derived from the crab fishery. That limited access to the snow crab fishery has therefore allowed us to save our fishing enterprises in recent years, even though the amounts allocated to us annually are quite minimal.

Like many people in the fishing industry, we were surprised by the 63% reduction in the TAC for snow crab in zone 12 for 2010. All stakeholders were expecting smaller catches, but not a reduction of that magnitude. Members of our association therefore saw a major part of their income vanish into thin air from one day to the next, and the fate of each of our fishing enterprises is now in question, since we no longer have anything to fish.

At the present time, the snow crab fishery in zone 12 is in crisis and all stakeholders, both the fishers and the processors, are paying a very high price for that state of affairs. It will take several years to rebuild the stocks.

We are firmly convinced that, had the Department of Fisheries and Oceans given greater consideration in recent years to the assessments of snow crab stocks in zone 12 prepared by its own biologists, the current crisis could have been avoided.

Gradual reductions of 10% a year in the TAC would have brought greater stability to this fishery. The most recent scientific assessments clearly showed a decline in the commercial biomass. However, the Department of Fisheries and Oceans maintained a high harvesting rate.

There is no doubt that we benefited from that fishery, as did all participants, but now we are facing a situation which is difficult for everyone. Pressure on that resource has often been caused for economic reasons. Many people in the region depend on the snow crab fishery. It is a major industry.

We are very concerned about the effects of this crisis. We are inclined to think that the primary manager of the resource, the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, has not properly performed its job of conserving the resource. That is very worrisome in terms of the future of this fishery.

Before closing, I would like to add that in 2004, 2005 and 2006, we worked directly with Fisheries and Oceans Canada on a rationalization program in an attempt to reduce the size of our fleet and provide a better income to the remaining members. We introduced a program that lasted for three years in a row and for which we were commended by the Department. At the end of those three years, we were told by the Department that the program would remain in place for another three years.

But then, the Department pushed us off to the sidelines; I do not know what happened. Furthermore, the Department prohibited cod fishing. Right now, we are just trying to earn a living. We fished 8,000 pounds of crab at $1.50 a pound, for a total income of $12,000. We are not even eligible for employment insurance benefits at this point; there is nothing for our dock workers either, and we are wondering why. I have been working with provincial, and especially, regional officials for two years now. They asked us to develop plans and the like, but the only answer we have been given is that Fisheries and Oceans does not have any money for us, that there is no money to help us with the rationalization program.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rodney Weston]

Thank you, Mr. Diotte.

Ms. Langlois.

[Mireille Langlois, Plant Workers Representative, Unipêche M.D.M. Ltée]

Good morning, I represent the plant workers that process snow crab.

Our situation is as follows. Since 2000, plant workers have not been getting enough hours and weeks of work in the plant. They have no choice but to turn to projects developed by the Quebec government, to leave the plants to go back to school, to completely change their type of employment or to leave the region altogether. We are having trouble getting enough hours and weeks of work to qualify for employment insurance, because you need 420 hours and 14 weeks, which is practically impossible to have every year. In order to be eligible for projects developed by the government, you must have worked four 40-hour weeks at the plant since 2003. People who did not work four 40-hour weeks in the plant in 2003 are left to fend for themselves; they are not considered to be plant workers. They have not been plant workers since 2004.

In 2005, there were 300 of us working at Fruits de mer Gascons Ltée. Since it closed, 120 people have secured a job at Unipêche M.D.M. Ltée in Paspébiac. Today, only 75 former employees of Fruits de mer Gascons Ltée are working. There have been huge job losses, and people have either relocated or left the region altogether.

This year, with a 63% reduction in quotas, the boats have gone to other plants. Unipêche M.D.M. Ltée has had to diversify into other species, such as lobster and whelk, so that people are able to work the mandatory four 40-hour weeks. If there is a quota cut next year, all these people are likely to be in real trouble.

We just wanted to describe the actual context. These days, the average plant worker is between 45 and 60 years of age. There are not many people applying to work in the plants. The fact is that few people are interested in working for only four weeks.

That is what I wanted to say.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rodney Weston]

Thank you.

Ms. Delarosbil, please.

[Linda Delarosbil, Plant Workers Representative, Unipêche M.D.M. Ltée]

We are part of the same team; we both work for Unipêche M.D.M. Ltée.

We need a lot of assistance to meet all these needs. Also, all these employees have to be recognized as real workers. Every year we fight for that recognition, but are never successful. They are part of the same industry, it is the same crab, and we have tried everything to make ourselves heard. It is hell having to depend on employment insurance and sickness benefits. We are prepared to start petitions, or do whatever we have to do to get the help we need.

We are part of the same team. And that is basically our story.